Fact Check: Viral image of footballer Lionel Messi shopping for guns in US is morphed

Hyderabad: Several social media users have posted an image of Argentinian footballer Lionel Messi pushing a shopping cart full of guns in a US departmental store.

According to a tweet from a verified account with the username Troll Football, “Messi has already adapted the American culture.”

Another post from a Facebook page reads, “Messi has already adopted the American culture by buying guns just to threaten refs if they refused to give him penalty. (sic)”

We also found another post claiming that the viral image is from Miami.

Fact Check

NewsMeter found the claim to be false as the viral image is fabricated.

The image comes in the backdrop of Argentina legend Lionel Messi choosing to play for the American team Inter Miami after his exit from the French club Paris St-Germain. The claim with the viral image is about how Messi is adjusting to the ‘American way of life’ with a shopping cart full of guns.

We performed a keyword search on the web to find relevant images or media reports about the same but could not yield any leads. By performing a reverse image search, we landed on a media report by the Daily Mail published on July 14, 2023.

The report contains the viral image and many more similar images of Lionel Messi having a great time shopping with his family. In the original image, there are no guns, rather Messi could be seen shopping for daily necessities.

A comparison of the two images is below.

With this, it is evident that the viral image is morphed.